Victory Is Sweet
by TheWaffleMonster
Summary: "I'm the winner, Zim," Dib whispered. "It…it just doesn't taste like I thought it would." T for blood, violence and mild language. NOT ZADR.


"You…wouldn't…dare."

The alien's voice rasped harshly, worn out from three days of neverending screams, demanding release. Not that he'd had high hopes, but his pride allowed him no other option. Struggling, spitting, swearing, feeling desperate panic rising within him as he slowly exhausted himself, hopelessly, uselessly.

"I've waited years for this." Out of the corner of his eye, Zim could see the human's hand resting on the tray of sterilized steel tools. "I'd be a fool to back out now."

"I'm stronger than you are, Dib-human."

"You're a liar." The human's pale fingers wrapped around a knife with a small, thin blade, so sharp the edge was invisible. "You're weak. Stubborn, but I can make you bend."

"I won't bend," Zim spat.

The smallest hint of a smile curled the corners of Dib's mouth. "Then you'll break."

The knife slid in easily, smoothly. Every cut was precise and accurate. Emotionless. Peeling back the skin and clamping it, Dib leaned forward to examine the alien's organs. He reached in, prodding. He heard a small, pitiful sound, barely choked back, escape Zim's throat, and something inside him shivered…

The alien's body thrashed against the steel restraints, protesting this intrusion, the wrongness of being so utterly exposed. His breath came in short, spasmodic gasps. Pain he could bear; it was the _otherness, _the sick feeling of being so violated, that tortured him.

"I'm glad I had to wait so long to capture you." Dib's voice was casual, conversational. He lifted Zim's squeedlyspooch from his body cavity, examining it with scientific curiosity. "It only made this moment more satisfying, more worth it all. It made me stronger."

His eyes flickered from his hands, splattered with green blood, to the crimson, orblike eyes of his nemesis. They were wide, terror shining through the mask of defiance. The reptilian tongue flicked in and out of his mouth as the alien attempted to speak.

"W-why…whyyy…didn't…you…"

"Why didn't I turn you in?" Dib replaced Zim's organ, tilting his head to the side. "Why didn't I expose you to the world?" His voice grew soft, bitter. Rolling up the left sleeve of his trench coat, he revealed a network of thin, dark scars crisscrossing his arm. "Because they don't deserve it. I want to be your sole captor, the sole victor."

His finger strayed to the tray of knives as his voice rose in intensity. "They called me crazy, a freak…they were too blind to see everything right in front of them. Everything I did was for their survival, and they hated me. Dad said—"

The flow of words stopped abruptly. Dib stared into space, his fist clenching around the razorlike blade of one knife, not even noticing when blood trickled through his clenched fingers.

"IT'S YOUR FAULT!" Abandoning all pretense of science, Dib slashed the instrument across Zim's face. "IT'S YOUR FAULT THAT THEY ALL HATED ME! IT'S YOUR FAULT THE WHOLE WORD REJECTED ME! YOU'RE THE REASON FOR THESE!" He dragged his fingers over the scars on his wrist.

The floor was swimming in Zim's blood. Dib's face, glasses, trench coat, boots, were all soaked in it. He reveled in it, stabbing madly wherever he could reach as Zim's PAK sparked, struggling to repair the numerous wounds covering his body. The knife tore through skin, muscles, tendons, blood spurting everywhere. Dib was laughing as unnoticed tears streamed from his eyes.

"W-who's broken now, spaceboy?"

The alien shuddered, his mouth struggling to form the word.

"…You."

"LIAR!"

Zim screamed as Dib plunged the knife over and over again into his right eye. The boy was shaking with a feeling that he couldn't name.

"You're a liar, Zim. You've lost. I've got everything I ever wanted right here."

Slowly, Zim shook his head, pointing.

"…Not…true…"

"SHUT UP!" His left eye was stabbed this time. "You're wrong, you're wrong…I'm the one hurting you…"

The blade slipped slowly from his loose grasp, landing in a sea of sticky, green liquid.

Dib leaned on the table, his eyes shut. He ran one hand through his scythelike hair.

The room was silent, the only sound a soft, sickening dripping noise as blood ran off the edge of the table to the floor.

"I'm the winner, Zim," Dib whispered. "It…it just doesn't taste like I thought it would."

In one second, one tiny, infinitesimal moment, they both understood: this was their hatred, their bitterness, their rage, nourished and kept burning over the years, consuming, controlling them. It had promised to satisfy, but left them empty, dead without the only thing that had defined them for so long.

And then that moment ended.

Dib pushed himself forward, clawing with his bare hands, ripping the alien's spooch from his body, tearing at his flesh, ripping him into shreds and scattering them. He felt himself screaming but heard only a loud, roaring hum. Shaking, he sank to his knees in his enemy's blood and vomited, not caring that the sick covered his jeans. A sort of numb despair engulfed him, wrapping him in an all-too-familiar embrace as he knelt there, rocking back and forth, shaking with sobs.

"No…" He stumbled drunkenly to his feet, dragging himself to the dissection table and pressing the button that would undo Zim's restraints. The body slid limply down, leaving a smear of green. Dib pushed it upright. "Wake up, please, I'm sorry…" Tears were coming so fast he could not longer see. "Damn it, Zim, I'm sorry, just, please…don't be…"

He let the body fall to the ground, not even following it with his eyes.

He stared at the blood on his hands, at the blood he was standing in, refusing to look at Zim's mangled corpse.

And he collapsed onto the floor, huddled and small and fragile, hiding his face in his hands, and he wept.


End file.
